Wednesday, March 20, 2013

However one looks at it, the recent events in Cyprus are an unmitigated catastrophe for the Troika, and potentially a resounding victory for Cyprus and Russia.

The fact that there was abstention from the ruling party, and a no vote to the rapacious, not to mention illegal proposals of the Troika, does actually show that there are limits to the exploitation both citizens and politicians will take at the hands of their abusers.

The Cyprus finance minister is now in Moscow discussing a solution with Putin and thanks to the behaviour of the Troika, the Moscow-Cyprus axis interests have been almost perfectly aligned. Putin wants a safe offshore financial haven and would be only too delighted to assist Cyprus in developing their very substantial offshore gas reserves, perhaps have a naval base in the Mediterranean, and last but by no means least he must be as mad as hell at the IMF; EU and ECB for threatening Russia and his cronies personal interests.

Imagine that huge amounts of Russian and ex CIS offshore money will have been blocked for almost a week where no-one can even use a credit card or withdraw cash. Vengeance is a dish best eaten cold and the KGB have long memories.

Russia, will certainly see strong attraction in assisting a quasi bankrupt EU and US orphaned client state, which has been cast out in the cold, to serve the Troika's ruthless self interest, and Gazprom has already proposed financial aid in exchange for security over future Gas production.

By doing so, they have leapfrogged the usual US Fortune 100 companies, which descend like vultures on the same private jets as the IMF, and US investment bankers, to asset strip distressed economies. The Washington business elite must be absolutely furious with Christine Lagarde, that their fiefdoms have been desecrated.

So alarmed are the Troika at developments that Merkel is attempting to tell a sovereign nation not to enter into a dialogue with Russia and only speak to the Troika. Is this imperial arrogance, or it it just someone running scared?

If an agreement is reached with Moscow, Cyprus would be well advised to default on all or a large part of their their debt and simply say to the IMF, having just escaped, we have no desire to be caught in the Western powers spider's web ever again.

The other aspect, mentioned in earlier posts is that the Troika have taken their mask off to reveal their true character and the fact that they will stop at nothing to keep the Euro prison together, including stealing money directly from private accounts. What is more all the citizens have seen and understood this reality,and happily not only in Cyprus but throughout the Eurozone.

This has every chance of ensuring a massive flight of capital from PIIGS countries and bank runs not seen since Northern Rock in the UK.

The Troika has completely botched the situation, and with such a complete and utter breach of trust, it is extremely difficult to see how they can go back, unless they acquiesce in all the conditions of the Cyprus government. Cyprus however may be so traumatised by the experience that they would prefer to do a deal with Russia, than to do a deal with the devil.

Time alone will tell how this will unfold, but it seems the Rubicon has been crossed in the War between the honest citizen, and the financial and political elites.

Unfortunately, if the social contract between the elites and the governed is broken, the citizens have only one choice and that is to revolt.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Cyprus has long been known as the Russian equivalent of the Cayman Islands, for major corporations such as Gazprom etc. to park their excess funds offshore. The rich of Russia, and ex CIS countries, whose vast fortunes come from political patronage, frequently from ex KGB connections, not only spend their summers there, flying in on private jets to enjoy their luxury yachts, but also have offshore companies making investments globally.

How then can it be that the total recorded Russian ex CIS funds, in Cyprus banks are a paltry EUR 30 Billion, when a provincial bank in Switzerland has a similar amount on deposit. Equally when we compare with the US Fortune 500 companies, they have USD 2-3 Trillion offshore, poor Russia can only manage 1% of this amount.

There has to be a strong presumption that the amount of cash parked in Cyprus is vastly greater than reported. How could this happen, well just look at J P Morgan misreporting the London Whale losses, to the regulator, and poor poor Mario Draghi who "knew nothing " about the Monte Paschi unrecorded losses? It is also in the Russian interest that the real amount in Cyprus remain a tightly held secret and no-one in Cyprus would have found objection with that.

Te other fascinating thing is that if we take the Cyprus reported bank deposits EU deposits peaked in 2010 at EUR 60 Billion and then fell into sharp decline to around EUR 18 Billion today.while the Russian amounts continued a steady rise from EUR 20 Billion to EUR 30 Billion today. What did the Europeans know that the Russians did not?

While Geopolitics is certainly not my speciality, it is nonetheless worth noting, that Cyprus has recently discovered offshore Gas, where Gazprom is ideally positioned to provide finance and technical assistance, and Russia is once again trying to expand its influence in the Mediterranean by having a Mediterranean fleet.

Russia to preserve its interests, has also provided several Billion EUR of financing to Cyprus, and as the biggest client of Cyprus banks certainly wants an important seat at the table. This Russian omni-presence in an EuroZone country is undoubtedly little appreciated by the Brussels-Berlin axis, not to mention the USA.

The fact that the Cyprus banks are insolvent is a very convenient Sword of Damocles, because a bail out is needed and the latest EU inspired attempted theft from depositors, almost certainly threatens much greater Russian interests than the reported USD 30 Billion.

What is amazing however is that any Cyprus politician would take his life in his hands and vote for expropriation of Russian KGB money in order to please the Brussels paper tigers.

Please find below an article written by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog. It summarises exactly my views on the subject and as a result I have reproduced it in full for readers:

"The deposit-confiscation "bailout" of Cyprus reveals much about the Eurozone's fundamental neocolonial, neofeudal structure.

At long last, Europe's flimsy facades of State sovereignty, democracy and free-market capitalism have collapsed, and we see the real machinery laid bare: the Eurozone's political-financial Aristocracy will stripmine every nation's citizenry to preserve their power and protect the banks and bondholders from absorbing losses.

The deposit-confiscation "bailout" of Cyprus confirms the Eurozone's fundamental neocolonial, neofeudal structure and the region's political surrender to financialization.

Let's list what Cyprus reveals about the true state of financial-political power in Europe:

1. The Core-Periphery terminology masks the real structure: the E.U. operates on a neocolonial model. In the old Colonialism 1.0 model, the colonizing power conquered or co-opted the Power Elites of the periphery regions, and proceeded to exploit the new colonies' resources and labor to enrich the Imperial core.

In Neocolonialism, the forces of financialization (debt and leverage controlled by State-enforced banking cartels) are used to indenture the local Elites and populace to the financial core: the peripheral "colonials" borrow money to buy the finished goods manufactured in the core economies, enriching the Imperial Elites with A) the profits made selling goods to the debtors B) interest on credit extended to the peripheral colonies to buy the core economies' goods and "live large", and C) the transactional skim of financializing peripheral assets such as real estate and State debt.

In essence, the core banks of the E.U. colonized the peripheral nations via the financializing euro, which enabled a massive expansion of debt and consumption in the periphery. The banks and exporters of the core exacted enormous profits from this expansion of debt and consumption.

Now that the financialization scheme of the euro has run its course, the periphery's neocolonial standing is starkly revealed: the assets and income of the periphery are flowing to the core as interest on the private and sovereign debts that are owed to the core's central bank and its crony money-center private banks.

This is not just the perfection of neocolonialism but of neofeudalism as well. The peripheral nations of the E.U. are effectively neocolonial debtors of the core (quasi-Imperial) banks, and the taxpayers of the core nations (now reduced to Germany and The Netherlands) are now feudal serfs whose labor is devoted to making good on any bank loans to the periphery that go bad.

Though we can term the E.U. a plutocracy or oligarchy, the neofeudal structure compels us to distinguish a class of those holding wealth and political power that is not limited to national border: this is an Aristocracy.

Serving the Aristocracy is a well-paid technocrat class of factotums, lackeys, toadies and enforcers. Below this well-compensated caste of technocrats is the larger class of debt-serfs, enslaved to interest payments on either their own debts or the debts of others, and bound by their class powerlessness, to protecting banks and bondholders from losses.

Cyprus merely adds an expropriation twist to this well-oiled plunder: deposits will be expropriated directly to insure no Imperial (core) banks or bond holders lose money on their absurdly risky loans to periphery nations and serfs.

2. This is a supranational plunder. While commentators can wile away years debating how much Germany benefited from the euro, the real core is not national, it is supranational banks and the political machinery of the E.U. the banks have effectively captured.

The citizenry of Germany may approve or disapprove of the Cyprus expropriation, but it doesn't matter either way: their own serfdom to banks and bondholders is simply being masked: the bailouts of periphery nations are transparently bailouts of core banks and bondholders.

The nation-states of the neocolonial periphery are simply convenient propaganda placeholders, useful misdirections aimed at the naive and sentimental, hollowed-out national structures propped up to mask the ugly neocolonial reality of servitude and plunder.

3. Democracy is a fiction when no matter who you vote for, the banks and bondholders win control of the national income stream and private wealth. Democracy in Europe is a travesty of a mockery of a sham, an absurd play which is acted out as a form of blood-sport circus to distract the masses from their powerlessness and debt-serfdom.

Democracy is a fiction, when the policies protecting banks and bondholders from losses remain in place, regardless of which political party, coalition or politico is nominally in power.

The German taxpayers' private wealth is being expropriated via taxes to bail out core banks and bondholders; how is this any different from the blatant expropriation of private assets in Cyprus?

It is only a difference in technique; the result is the same: the forced transfer of wealth from those who earned it from their labor to banks and bondholders which in a truly capitalist economy would be immediately forced to absorb the losses of their leveraged, highly risky bets.

4. The ideological fiction of capitalism is dead in Europe. Capitalism is a fiction if capital that is placed at risk for a return cannot be lost.

5. Cyprus is a test to see how blatant the expropriation of private assets can become without triggering overthrow and revolution. If the furor dies down soon enough, then the same technique of expropriation will be imposed elsewhere. If the reaction is sustained and threatening to the Aristocracy, other less blatant expropriations will be tested in other neocolonies.

6. Divide and conquer is the propaganda order of the day. The Power Elites are attempting to set the serfs of the periphery against the serfs of the core, the goal being to keep both sets of serfs from realizing they are equally indentured to the core's pathological political-financial Aristocracy."

Monday, March 18, 2013

This weekend's events have a significance far beyond the utterly immaterial problems of Cyprus.

Economically it is tiny and the entire funding required is equivalent of one weeks deficit in the US, so why is it so important?

For many months the EU elites aided and abetted by the ECB have practiced financial repression against savers, the backbone of the economy, by imposing zero interest rates, depriving savers of income on their cash; supporting corrupt and bankrupt banks, who are given virtually a licence to steal to reconstitute their capital, lost on speculative ventures and massive unjustified bonuses. In addition, QE or money printing, destroys the value of existing cash by driving inflation. Add to this rising taxes and we have the proven Marxist model for destruction of the middle classes.As if this were not enough, if the proposals are approved, we are witnessing straight forward theft, from existing private bank accounts, by way of a "tax" in direct violation of EU laws and treaties.One of the most chilling documents I read in my lifetime, was a letter sent to the parents of a Jewish friend, who owned an apartment in Paris during the last War. It simply said as of next week you will move out and a certain German army officer will take over the apartment. Their wealth expropriated by the Nazi regime they were left destitute in the street and with a tragic future.This Cyprus expropriation is potentially the thin end of a very large wedge, and who is to say where it stops, a 10% wealth tax, and next time 20%. Will the PIIGS Government desperate to save themselves try the same thing; will there be a property tax next; or a wealth tax; or will they simply rob your pension plan; and when some person cannot or refuses to pay, will their fate be like that of my friend's parents.Make no mistake, this is a test case masked in a veil of breathtaking incompetence, but the intentions have never been clearer, and anyone who does not see this for what it is, will live to regret it.

We must all confront and strongly oppose this tyrannical oppression now before it is too late. I know many will say this is gross exaggeration how could this possibly happen. My answer would be, don't you mean ...AGAIN?

While I do not give investment advice, if I personally were either a citizen of, or resident in, a PIIGS country I would be moving all surplus liquid assets out of the EU entirely. If enough people do so, it could trigger a bank run and an economic collapse. Is it not better that this happens before all your assets have been stripped from you?

Following the recent US Senate hearings on the circumstances surrounding the USD 2 Billion, subsequently revised to USD 6.2 Billon, losses caused by J P Morgan's proprietary trading activities, by the so called "London Whale" an exasperated Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the inquiry commented:

What more devastating indictment can there be, and one has to wonder why the executives involved and their masters behind the scenes were not immediately arrested after giving evidence?

The initially reported losses prompted Jamie Dimon the CEO of the "Fortress Bank" to comment that it was a storm in a tea cup, and just to ensure that it remained so, he apparently ordered his subordinates NOT to report the true financial situation to regulators. It would appear that London also was not reporting the true situation to New York, just to add another ripple to the storm in a teacup.

When many months after external analysts had estimated far more accurately than J P Morgan the extent of the losses, management finally admitted the truth, they obviously stated there had been no wrongdoing and that they were working hard on amending internal controls and procedures.

The rogue trader and some other staff members were retired/fired and as an illustration of how seriously the CEO Jamie Dimon took the whole affair, he did not even turn up to this Senate hearing. Perhaps it was a good thing as last time he appeared in committee he was wearing prominently a set of White House gift cuff links.

So now this incident caused by the proverbial "Rogue Trader" acting as always completely alone, within the framework of America's biggest bank, has been swept under the table, we can rest assured that J P Morgan will go back to business as usual.

There are of course just a few niggling little facts that have not been mentioned, which makes the London Whale story look exactly like business as usual, inside a vast constellation of similar activities, some alleged, some proven and many settled out of court. The list is so extensive as to turn my Blog into a full length novel so I provide a link below for your perusal:

Malpractice includes money laundering for drug cartels, sanction violations, violation of commodities and exchange acts, failure to segregate customer funds, executing fictitious trades, misrepresentations of CDO and MBS, foreclosure fraud, fraudulent sale of unregistered securities, energy market manipulation, shifting trading losses to client accounts, municipal bond market manipulation, obstruction of justice and the list goes on........and on !!!This list does not include ongoing investigations such as LIBOR rigging etcSo how is it possible for such an institution to survive and thrive? The answer as always is its not what you know its who you know.J P Morgan has the biggest financial lobbying machine in Washington, and a vast part of its income comes from State patronage either directly or indirectly. Examples include distribution of food stamps, probably America's biggest growth industry, dealing in Government securities, manipulating markets for the account of the treasury, plus direct bail outs and subsidies like the attempt at the moment to get the state to bail them out of losses arising from its acquisition of Washington Mutual.Without the state help J P Morgan would struggle to break even, while at the same times flaunting laws, regulators, violating client and the general public interests, and taking colossal risks. This serves solely to pay the massive outrageous salaries of mediocre people whose only real talent is knowing how to hijack the system and make it work in their favour, and traffic influence with greedy and corrupt politicians to maintain the status quo.When will the next whale surface?

There is currently in Switzerland an initiative to change Swiss Law regarding the state's Gold reserves.

However this requires a minimum of 100,000 people entitled to vote in Switzerland signing the initiative.

The main changes proposed to the current law include:

Full physical verification of the Swiss Gold reserves

Ensuring that all Swiss Gold is actually held in vaults in Switzerland

Ensuring that no currency can be issued if it is not backed by Gold

This is of particular importance in view of the difficulties experienced by Germany in getting their Gold reserves back from the USA, and the massive money printing backed by nothing, going on worldwide.

If you support this initiative please find below the necessary signature forms:

The events surrounding the Cyprus "bail out", or perhaps more appropriately for the Russian Oligarchs and the poor Cyprus citizens, a "bail in" are of enormous importance.

Firstly, it displays that German politics and upcoming elections justify throwing the widows, orphans, pensioners and a plethora of lower income Cypriot residents, such as serving and ex British servicemen and citizens under a bus.

Secondly, it shows that EU Law protecting deposits under EUR 100K can be abrogated at will by Group of EU finance ministers, desperately trying to save their own skins. This means there is no rule of law, and certainly no equality before the law.

Thirdly, it shows a staggering arrogance and naivety that the EU/IMF/ECB can simply arbitrarily appropriate the wealth of some of the most powerful oligarchs in Continental Europe, who directly have control over the flow of Oil and Gas from East to West.

Fourthly, it shows the shape of things to come for all the PIIGS countries, where even the uninformed citizen cannot be blind to the fact that if he leaves his money in a bank account, it can be stolen by Government at will. Alternatively, if it is kept under the mattress it is "safe" from the most professional of robbers, the state!

The direct and indirect consequences of this monumental strategic error will be with us for a long time.

The Russians will certainly not take this lying down, and their methods are ruthless in the extreme, as can be demonstrated by a number of corpses found in Moscow and London, and their treatment of powerful investment groups such as Hermitage. Additionally, the Russians, who have been accumulating Gold at a significant rate may accelerate their buying program to get away from toxic paper held in EU bank traps. Following the Bank Holiday, there will be massive capital flight which will bring the banks again to their knees.

The average PIIGS citizen, should no longer be completely blind to the reality, and by moving his money out to safe havens, this will stretch the resources of the ECB even further. This may well trigger imposition of capital controls, supposedly illegal in the EU, but who cares about the law these days?

There is little doubt that the Cyprus Government will sell their people down the river in response to external pressures, but my hope is that history will remember this act of economic rape, as a turning point for Oligarchs and ordinary citizens alike.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Please find below a link to a recent VIDEO interview, between myself and James Corbett, founder and owner of the Corbett Report – www.CorbettReport.com. where we discuss a wide range of subjects covering economics, finance and politics.

This interview discusses, the recent Italian elections and the resurgence of democracy as a protest against austerity imposed by the technocratic government; the ultimate futility of QE by Mr Abe in Japan following the nomination of a new BOJ governor; the illusory US real estate market recovery as portrayed by Bernanke and the National Association of Realtors; the scandal that JPM actions may have been the final straw that led to the bankruptcy of Lehman and triggered the financial crisis; the movement in Switzerland to organise a referendum on having Gold to back the currency; Rand Paul's filibuster and opposition to unconstitutional powers, allowing the President to kill Americans in the US without trial by executive fiat.http://www.corbettreport.com/italian-clowns-false-housing-starts-swiss-update/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XqzPYptvig

The Corbett Report provides a weekly podcast as well as interviews, articles and videos about current events and suppressed history from an independent perspective.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

This month the National Association of Realtors (“NAR”) announced soaring median house prices USD
174K up from USD 155K the previous year and a mere 1.75 million homes, 4 months
supply remaining in inventory. The message is clear buy now before it is too
late. The NAR is one of the main sources of “irrational exuberance” for the US
property market.

Believing this assumes one has a very short memory of
previous forward looking statements by the NAR such as those in 2005-7 that the
housing market could never collapse. Indeed David Lereah the NAR spokesman
making them at the time was fired, and when interviewed by the media admitted
he was pressured into making optimistic forecasts, and left to be the fall guy
when the market collapsed.

Could history be repeating itself for Lawrence Yun, Lereah’s
successor?

US Residential Real Estate Market Overview

Based on the National census the market consists of 133
Million homes. The average price, not the median price, based on Zillow
statistics, is currently USD 152K. This means that the total value of all US
residential real estate is approximately USD 20 TRILLION

Of the 133 million homes, 75 million are owner occupied, 40
million are rented, 4 million available for rent and 5 million are secondary
residences. This leaves 9 million homes
totally vacant.

From the above, there are estimated to be 14 million
residential mortgages nationwide currently underwater. Some 5.5 million homes are already either delinquent or in foreclosure
and this trend is accelerating.

Imagine the impact on prices of all the excess inventory
above, some USD 2-3 Trillion in value hitting the market. One can see why
Bernanke has tried desperately to re-inflate the bubble and save his banking
buddies from the massive loan losses they would inevitably have incurred, by
passing the burden to the taxpayer.

This is why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage lender GSE’s were
effectively nationalized and now issue virtually all new mortgages in the US.
It is also why the FED is buying up to USD 45 Billion in mortgage backed
securities monthly from the banks and other lenders.

This shadow housing inventory has a major impact on new construction where
volumes are now 400,000 per month up from 300,000 over the last 3 years. This represents
a 70% drop from the peak of 1,400,000 per month in 2006 and is back at levels
last seen in 1982.

The product mix has also changed, where instead of building
Mac mansions, current new construction is concentrated on low cost student
apartments or lower middle class housing units frequently government financed.

The only bright light in selected areas, South California,
New York, Boston, Nevada, Arizona etc. is that private equity/hedge funds and
high net worth individuals have also been investing in high end properties.
These are mainly buy, to let at good yields, when the investor's sources of finance are
either cash down, or close to 0% interest loans. This is a game for the rich
and the well connected, and normal buyers are excluded. This increase in supply
will also push rentals down in prime areas, driving the lower quality property
prices down even further.

The NAR members, are specifically exempted by Congress, from
Money laundering regulations. Thus real estate purchases are frequently little
more than a vehicle to recycle drug money.

In conclusion, it is mathematically impossible for many
reasons for the market to enjoy a broad based recovery. There is a massive shadow inventory of properties. Too many owners who
would move up the ladder are currently underwater on their loans. The first
time buyer is saddled with massive student loans and no cash and probably no
job. More children are moving back with their parents. Baby boomers faced with
sharply declining retirement prospects are offloading large and secondary
residences.

This is why the NAR and the FED whose interests are directly
aligned are working hard to entwine the trusting investor in their spider’s web
of deception.

THE BERNANKE HIGHToday saw the Dow reach a new all time high of 14254, exceeding 2007 levels. At the same time the FTSE saw 5 year highs. The mainstream media slavishly and mindlessly report this euphoric situation, linking it to the economic recovery, particularly in the US, and of course the financial genius of Ben Bernanke and the FED.. They fail to mention a few troubling little details about the US economy now, compared with then in 2007:

Adjusted for inflation over the last 5 years the new "high" is still well below the 2007 level in purchasing power terms.

These figures do not take into account the stagnation in the real estate market, where shadow inventory will weigh on the market for years to come, despite the gross misrepresentations in this regard from the NAR (National Assoc of Realtors).

Also ignored is the student loan market, which now exceeds USD 1 Trillion, and default rates are soaring, as hapless students with worthless degrees are unable to find work. The good news for politicians is up to now students were excluded from the unemployment statistics.

If one considers that USD 1 Trillion of new cash pumped into the economy generated only a 1,6% growth, or USD 250 Billion of GDP increase, then QE seems an ineffective tool to create a meaningful recovery.

In reality the rise in the Dow has nothing to do with economic fundamentals. It is purely down to the QE and ZIRP driven "Bernanke High". Excess liquidity from QE finds its way into the stock and bond markets, driving prices up and yields down. Zero interest rates drive prudent investors like lemmings into taking unwanted risks to get some/any return on capital.

The Italian election results and the consequences within Italy; the wider impact that the disavowal of Mario Monti, the technocratic puppet of Brussels and the ECB, will have on the financial markets; the future stability of the Euro Zone in general.

To view the broadcast please follow the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYEjFIgB-kI

Dukascopy Bank SA offers direct access to the Swiss Foreign Exchange Marketplace. This marketplace provides the largest pool of ECN spot Forex liquidity available for banks, hedge funds, other institutions and investors.

The Swiss Forex Marketplace (SWFX) is the technological solution for Forex trading utilizing a centralized-decentralized marketplace model. Its successful launch is the result of home-made IT solutions and close cooperation with selected banks and other financial institutions.

I am very grateful to Frank Hollenbeck that he took part in this debate, and pleased that thanks to Dukascopy TV, my message is reaching an ever wider audience.

About Me

The author is a British/Swiss dual national, with a Law Degree and a Chartered Accounting qualification. His background includes positions in general management, finance, private equity, start ups, business development, M&A, turnarounds and trust & family office work. He has worked for major Swiss and US multinationals, global banks, and UHNW businesses.
For full details consult the LinkedIn profile
http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/david-l-smith/4/5b6/65a